Wilhelm Schmidt

Wilhelm Schmidt (1868–1954) was a German linguist, anthropologist, and ethnologist.

Wilhelm Schmidt was born in Hörde, Germany in 1868. He entered the Society of the Divine Word in 1890, and was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest in 1892. He studied linguistics at the universities of Berlin and Vienna.

His early work in linguistics was on the Mon-Khmer languages of South East Asia, which led him to hypothesize the existence of a broader Austric group of languages, connected to the Austronesian language group.

From 1912 on, Schmidt began to publish his 12-volume Der Ursprung der Gottesidee, and developed his theory of primitive monotheism — the belief that primitive religion in almost all tribal peoples began with an essentially monotheistic concept of a high god — usually a sky god — who was a benevolent creator.

In 1906, Schmidt founded the journal Anthropos, and in 1931, the Anthropos Institute, both of which still exist today. In 1938, Schmidt and the Institute fled from Nazi-occupied Austria to Freiburg, Switzerland.

His works available in English translation are: The Origin and Growth of Religion (1931), High Gods in North America (1933), The Culture Historical Method of Ethnology (1939), and Primitive Revelation (1939).

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